I believe Tupamaros are capable of a lot of violence, specially what they think as class violence, and some very twisted stuff (burning or damaging public and private property). That being said, I don’t know many people that live in a barrio that would have the guts to burn a CDI. From what I’ve heard CDI and Barrio Adentro módulos are pretty much sacred. He/she would have to live out of the barrio, or be very out of their minds. Of course, not all chavistas live in a barrio, and not everyone (on either side) is free from insanity.

Charlies Angels, MiB, the A-Team, Team America and Bob the builder are also suspected. Charlie’s Angels are especially under examination, Maduro would like to question Camren Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore personally.

Remember, we already told you to stop being stupid! Now here you are, being a total idiot and putting words in Gustavo’s mouth, who actually said… “evidence of violence…infrastructure was fine”

Now that we have addressed today’s embarrassment to Chavismo (and humanity) it does bare pointing out they will not make this same mistake twice. Next time they will get someone to actually attack them, a la the Reichstags fire.

The Nation has a tiny following, the author of that article is a good example of it’s remaining readership: Dinosaur liberals, who still think it’s 1989 (or even 1969). You can make some quick comments but that guy will never, ever change his mind. You’d have more luck trying to get your Evangelical grandmother to convert to atheism.

Curiously, I find the government’s stance on the recount decidedly odd. If the government wanted to settle this once and for all and prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether the opposition is lying, then recount, recount, recount.

Why they are so stolidly against it is beyond me, unless they have something to hide. A recount would settle the issue beyond dispute and even the opposition would have to abide by it.

But alas, they refuse. The easiest solution to diffusing the whole situation and the government instead elects to play chicken and ratchet up the rhetoric.

So is it lies? Gamesmanship? I will believe one side is lying and the other is telling the truth once either one presents something verifiable by a reasonable standard.

In the meantime, the uncertainty tears the country apart and drives away what little DFI and tourism exists that would otherwise bring in welcome currency.

Either that, or you don’t think very highly of Venezuela’s election system. Are ballots in Venezuela so poorly looked after that the paper ballots cannot be relied upon after a few days? Or are Venezuelan ballots radioactive materials, with a half life measured in days such that most of them have now undergone fission into base elements?

You are doing a commendable job of defending the indefensible, I’ll give you that much!

Also, why then did Chavez repeatedly call for recounts in Mexico. Are Mexicans more civilized and proper than Venezuelans, so their paper ballots can be trusted after weeks, whereas Venezuelans are such uncouth barbarians they will inevitably soil paper ballots after only a few days?

700k of the paper ballots would be untrustworthy if the alleged incidents took place. The PSUV still hasn’t posted the actas to their site after a grand press conference talking about they were going to do it.

So now you are telling the opposition why they should not be satisfied by a complete count of paper ballots, and because you believe this Venezuela shouldn’t even BOTHER to do what Chavez himself demanded in Mexico?

Erm, the CNE is supposed to be the one keeping the chain of evidence for the ballot boxes. Your argument is that you don’t trust the CNE. And it’s a weak one, at that.

In fact, if you don’t trust the CNE so much, perhaps that’s why you’re against a recount, because you know they can’t deliver on a recount that matches the voting machine footprint.

I’d have been more inclined to believe that you didn’t want a recount because you didn’t give a shit, at least that’d be consistent, but this is silliness. The reason they’re not doing a recount is because that’s what the opposition wants, first and foremost. Whether they think they have something to hide, I don’t know. I suspect that like with the street murders, they know that their side probably did some bullshit, and know it’ll come out in a recount. Whether they think it would cost them the election is a foregone conclusion, they will hold power for as long as they wish.

“If the opposition is already questioning a process in which their witnesses were present for the entire process, and auditing, why should anyone believe they would accept a recount in the presence of their witnesses?”

It’s easy enough. The PSUVs actas wouldn’t be signed by opposition observers in those polling stations, as far as I understand. Regardless, the CNE should still look in to the allegations as that is their job.

Sorry GaC, but every time that Jorge Rodriguez helds a press conference my BS-meter explodes. This is the guy that pretended to be an “unfair” president of the CNE and later got the VP position as a reward. And it was not a sudden change of heart. He was always a part of the MVR in the late 90s, as a chavista later confessed.

The evidence will be presented by the opposition at the CNE. The videos showing how chavismo did not respect the secrecy of vote is out there. It will not dissappear just because you ignore it. As a matter of fact, I could not care less about your opinion. I am actually concern about other people that might fall for your lies.

Any speculation as to what is next? The CNE will either:
1) Agree to an automated recount (vs. manual), while rejecting every other claim of the opposition (thinking they can show Maduro won on that basis), or
2) Reject all claims of the opposition outright by focusing on 1 or 2 that don’t hold water, vs. the +3000 others that do (like they are doing with the Capriles press conference)

In the first scenario, the government will refocus everyone on the “transparency” of the automated system vs. manual system and Capriles will no longer have “fairness/intimidation” in the forefront of people’s minds, which is just as important of an issue. In the second scenario, the government will refocus everyone on the 1-2 opposition inconsistencies, vs. the inconsistencies of their own (the way in which every Chavista argues), and Capriles will be left defending points that are less consequential to the heart of the matter…

Quico is right that the better Opposition argument is the accuracy of the vote count, assuming that the numbers don’t add up (which I am told they don’t from people internally), because it is easier to “prove.” However, the problem with this approach is that ultimately the government is in the stronger position as they ultimately know better where & how fraud happened (assuming it did), making it easier to cover it up with witnesses, changed votes within machines, missing ballots, etc. to “disprove” the opposition allegations (if things ever really do go that far). Further, the opposition is losing their ability to argue the other points which according to the constitution would be a basis for calling new elections altogether and which really do need reformation to make things more fair in future elections.

And that is why Capriles is in a tough spot right now as there are no clear answers or strategy..

I have to say, whether its coordinated or not, the opposition is on their game. Other than this debunking of the CDI attack, I know of at least three other similar accounts, the best example of which is the Govt. claim that Polibaruta was infiltrating personnel with Chavista t-shirts to cause violence in Opposition protests, it was only a matter of minutes before Mayor Gerardo Blyde offered up this gem (the idiots didn´t know that there are CCTV cameras around the outsides of Polibaurta HQ):
This is what the Govt´claimed: http://www.twitmunin.com/es/1216895/polibaruta-disfrazado-de-chavista-para-causar-violencia/

Emiliana,
Perhaps it would be good if the opposition placed all this evidence in a centralised place in some (well-protected) site and that it could write a short description of what it is…and present that to international journalists and different organisations.

Declarations are fine, but it could be good if at least part of the material, the one not so sensitive, could be made available on line at a central place.

Among the material, one could put documentation about these health centres, videos of Chavistas attacking and the like, plus irregularities like chavistas threatening people, going to “accompany” people to vote and so on.

We are all documenting that, but a central official place to put a succinct description of the whole would be useful for foreigners trying to find their way around.

It says that Maduro’s greatest aspiration is actually that he wishes the world to know he is BIG BIRD reincarnated!As a popular children’s TVStar, he has impunity and must betaken more seriously than as a failed bus driver and fraud!

Hey “Get A Clue:” since there has been no manual recount and audit, NOTHING HAS BEEN PROVEN TO ANYONE,not even to critically thinking Chavistas who know Maduro is a total cheesedog. We have only the word of puppets who suppport Cubazuela that this was a perfect and honest election process. Those of us who can think know what we’ve seen on video—motocycling tupamaros shooting at people and closing votation centers, people absconding with ballots,not sending the machine count at all if Capriles was the winner, and worse. So, nice try but give us a break! That canard no longer sticks on the wall, back to the DI/G2 handbook for more things to post!

What are they afraid of, that somebody will see their “I Love Fidel” tats are misspelled as “Yo ano Fidel”? They were sending out their Cuban indoctrinated shills to demand recounts in the US, Mexico, Peru….why is this also not suitable for Venezuelans? I know their Cuban masters joke that “Maduro ran for office. you can trust Venezuelans only to run.” But still…

There was an eighth fatality, the chauffeur of a Cuban under-minister of Petroleum. Naturally,an ideologically pure Chavista, a poor man, actually, with a young family. Our hearts go out tohis widow and kids! He was gunned down by automatic weaponsby amobof howling Chavistas who thought they had cornered an “esqualido.” Naturally, this is not in state-controlled media. So, “Get a clue” why don’t YOU get one and learn from what your masters have wrought? they are dividing Venezuelan from Venezuelan, hermano from hermano, all to protect the colonization of Venezuela by Cuba!